and raped or sexually assaulted told me that she looked at these guys as your brother or the suspect as your brother it's a kin to what happens in a family with incest because you know in the military when we're functioning at our best a cohesive unit with brothers and sisters and of the band of brothers and sisters i mean we are family when that ball and of trust is violated. the wound penetrates to the very most inner part of one's soul one psyche. they have this folder that i keep i have all my boot camp letters and if my mom and my sister and . people and. just going through some of this stuff and i'm like what's this you know and i open it up i'm like oh my god. my suicide letter.

bomb i'm sorry for the greece that you must feel. just because i'm gone physically doesn't mean i will be there spiritually i truly feel that god will take me without question even though i took my own life. i've had the most broken thoughts of dreams and physical pain to remind me of the her if it acts upon me that happened while on duty a mother brother sister and husband should never live with knowing the horrible acts upon me find peace in knowing that my bottom that the body left behind doesn't consume my soul i am free now and i'm not afraid. ready to soar corded and you know . i took a whole bottle of pills and woke up strangely enough i'm not sure why. i at that point in my life i just wanted to be over. and think i was 2021 and

then. within the next year i tried again i went out into the garage which. up from the house when i turn the car on. the current for it see it myself and it was pulled blondie out a little ball you door into scratching and helling at the door to shut up to me to wake my wife up so i got to shut the car off for a minute i'll just take her in the garage would be the nominee so why would you kill a dog that's stupid and then the dawn on me would you kill yourself i thought of it so many times and so many ways i thought about. at one point in time hanging myself from the flagpole was a song on me. saying exactly what happened to make him feel bad. i was going to. overdose on pain medication and sleeping medication. and

just hope that i'd fall asleep in my body it would just shut down or something. when i went to the doctor i had been feeling sick and dizzy and nozick nazia ate it and. they took my urine and they told me that i was pregnant i. was like you know there's a wife in there you know and maybe very wife will be better than mine and i got to make sure that so. she is very special. sometimes it takes a different kind of action to cause change to calm. and sometimes. a lot. i grew up on military bases my dad was career army when i was a child when we answer the phone we just have to say colonel brooks quarters and because of that i have as i have an understanding of the level of control that the

military exercises that perhaps most in civilian life don't have. the fairness doctrine is a judicial doctrine that was developed by the supreme court that says if you're in the military you cannot sue for something that happens to you that's incidental your military service if you military doctors amputate the wrong limb you're out of luck you cannot sue for that for that harm that's been done to you so we filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of 16 men and women seeking to bring former secretary rumsfeld and secretary gates to justice. i heard about the lawsuit and decided to become a part of it. because i never wanted another woman to go through what i would.

be a lawsuit alleges that they have overseen a system that has deprived the rape survivors of their constitutional rights specifically we allege that they deprived them of their substantive due process procedural due process equal protection and 1st amendment rights. he's sick to see everybody stories. how they kind of closely tied together everybody story somehow has a it's can. the military does to people like us all the things that they put in place are all pretty much intended to help women deal with being raped better that's what they're about. and join the

military halfway through my sphere of high school awning to serve my country and do new things and challenge myself in a different way. i was in the army about 7 or 8 years before anything ever happened to me. by another cod agent who was senior to me. i was contacted by an agent with 4 riley c. id who said they were investigating the suspect as a serial rapist who had raped several military law enforcement women and i thought there was no way that you know he wouldn't be convicted and i have a difficult time with anything that's not the fact that i had an almost 10 year career which i was very invested in and i gave that up to report a sex offender who was not even put to justice or put on the registry and he's probably doing the same thing right now. it was a female attempt on me aside and tell me that you know she had heard about my case

and she thought she could talk to me as one female marine to another and she told me what he did was capitalize on an opportunity that you presented to him that's not the same thing as raped and you need to know that. human after it happened they mean you know and i think with them and i tried having everybody advocate for me to not make me go i just couldn't deal with seeing him so their solution to that was just to put him right in front of me as i see him the whole time so that i could know where he was and know that he wasn't able to do anything to sit right in front of me and i remember thinking the entire time we were up on the hills and kept. steeper. there's no way out of it i mean if you think about it the only way out of it is like a suicide or a wall so that's those are your only 2 options suicide a wall or deal with it right now i'm just barely appreciating learning how to appreciate being a woman again as 11 years. and. i'm trying to have

fun with it not forcing myself to have fun. i'm trying really hard not to cry but it just. you know and watching you girls having to. go through it i mean it makes me want to explode being here and like knowing that me wanting to commit suicide i'm not alone me being hidden raped and not everything the way that they treated me the way that they made me feel not alone and we have all you guys with all your knowledge and everything you guys are going to stand right you know it's all sort of this instance. i think the woman who are coming forward in this lawsuit are very courageous they because they're putting their names out there for criticism. they're putting their names out there to go down and his truth is they were the ones who got raped and

there's one thing you want to go through life with. so. today i stand in solidarity with the courageous women and men who serve in our nation's armed forces the inspirational plaintiffs you see before you are a small handful of the 10s of thousands of troops and veterans who've been sexually brutalized by their fellow service members while defending our nation it is time to finally acknowledge that the military judicial system is broken when it comes to these cases my name is and in my case my command was unwilling to help me i went for help several times with other petty officers and i i was denied help even with other men saying please get her away from him and it was it was still out many. people were telling me don't go to the public don't let this get out because it'll make the military look bad i really feel like my social responsibility to speak out

about this issue especially considering my investigative experience and the fact that the military justice system allows so many offenders to escape. his or her thanks for being willing to kill me in a little bit on some of the experiences i name is regina vasquez and i served honorably in the united states marine corps for 4 years playing miss corey choke and i served in the united states coast guard i was harassed and sexually assaulted i was administrative leave discharges no benefits after 9 and a half years of service women should not bear their burden that is not part of what we should have been doing to do our jobs for time a criminal activity we're talking about a vicious. attack that it is criminal it is an assault. almost none of the court

martial and all of the ones that do almost none of their resulting convictions teams to me all the time times that i've looked at these things. so much discretion. advocate should actually be civilians not ones that work in the military i think we should have actual units civilian units it absolutely tears in my inside to think that this is been going on for as long as it's been going on and we've never addressed all people in the military must know if you're a perpetrator of sexual assault against someone else. you're going to be held accountable.

the. lists

lists lists lists lists. list. and very well might continue watching on since last. why do we go to war because we view the key to economic growth as oil and energy we go to war is vice president cheney said for the oil that's why they invaded iraq for the oil that's why trump says the one thing we want syria we really don't want to go to war with russia we want to just control the oil. and the gas blood and the pipelines through afghanistan so the military is really an extension of controlling a world of energy and oil.

and so. i found it tremendously frustrating when i would demonstrate that an offender commit an offense and taking it to a commander and having a commander be the deciding authority you know i don't think commanders are capable of making. an objective decision i do not think it should be in their hands so he was just seeking to do discretion away from yes absolutely congresswoman davis and i are both on the armed services committee there are a number of issues that you've raised that makes me want to go back and particularly take another look an emotional one individual basis what happens after a crime like that has been committed it's a very difficult thing to go through and don't think i don't know i know. the fact

that you're willing to tell me your stories firsthand makes it much easier for us to go back and just say you know these are policies that we have to change it's a big it's a big big deal but you do it really find people like you who stand up for us thank you so much for. me. thank you again for your service thanks for your time mr speaker last year the military received over 3000 reports of sexual assault in. other members in the service this week 17 batteries are saying that the military in order cases of sexual assault while they were on active duty today i'm going to talk about the men corey chokmah who served in the coast guard from august 2005 to june 2007 she now separates from p.t.s.d. and abnormal e.g. did nerve damage in her fate childhood later told the press it's like they didn't care it wasn't important i wasn't important.

going to get me out. he was cross. there is my pay. this is. effective october 20th 2009 my overall combined rating is 70 percent.

service connection for anxiety is deny service connection for displacement and bilateral bilateral this displacement is deny. you. will be right there. my face doesn't have any skin and that's what the x. rays show that's what dr karp those letters. medical were rumors are true it's. nice to see you again and thank you for coming i'm going to play a short public service announcement and then we can entertain questions i think the prevention aspect of sexual assault goes back in some ways to risk reduction what it already is was risk reduction risk reduction are ideas like telling women to if they're going to go somewhere together always have

a buddy with them or there are other examples of risk. i didn't i'm not familiar with that's out of my area of expertise. well i want to continue where dr whitley left off you know looking at what our focus is and that's on prevention as well as as a response we've really done a very good job there and the credit goes to dr whitley and her staff that has been working this for the last 5 to 6 years i don't think the department of defense has has really yet embraced that they have a sexual assault problem but it's not just an issue of the culture environment so that the people are at risk for sexual assault that their system itself though just does not value the rights of victims and doesn't provide them adequate protection you know i have heard the accusations as well that you know commanders are sweeping this under the carpet now what i would say to the people that have come forward to you is if you feel your commander is ignoring what you have have asked them to do

if they're not taking care of you within that chain of command you need to go to the d.o.d. that are part of the fence inspector general g.a.o. general accounting office just did a study a report and guess what not one. one case of more than 2500 has been reviewed and investigated by the inspector general and when asked about that the inspector general said we have other higher priorities what what you really want is you want there to be a system akin to a civilian system where you go to the police and you're in the crime is prosecuted by an impartial judicial system as a commander you have no favorites you are equally to take care of every single person in your organization and that's what commanders are all about these are human beings just like everybody else you cannot be impartial when you are already

involved with people in other settings i would take exception with your characterization that the disposition of the case is based on the relationship between the commander. and he alleged perpetrator. i'm going to speak to you with my former commanders had on there is actually no conflict of interest you do what the right thing is to do. 'd you have other avenues and those if you feel like you have not been taken care of adequately by your commander go up through your congressman or congresswoman and file a complaint that way you cannot you can't go to a congressman to be to obtain justice for being raped i mean imagine ringback how silly that is imagine if you told civilians that oh geez sorry you were raped go talk to your congressman.

you could say something to this guy but what you want to see. i don't think it's affected his life it on. and people in my old squadron that i've talked to. they say they don't see any effect that it's had on. her. because it's a struggle every day that's clearly changed to i. i'm really hoping that he falls off the coast guard but they never find him i'm really hoping for that like they fight for so poor mishap where he got chopped up by the prop. big that would be great that would be an exciting day but i priced. i hope this reaches them to you know i hope that someone or someone sees my

face you know wherever it is and goes. i know them and they're talking about me. because they know what they did you know and then although half the matter is some friend they. say we station with her. you know and then they can be a secret anymore. so hopefully they have to deal with it too you know some way shape or. most rapists. repetitive criminals that it's a kind of crime that has an obsessive qualities to people do it again and again so the tragedy of that is that every one of these guys who gets off free will be doing it to other women again and again often for years. the average sex offender and your wife time has about 300 victims and the vast majority of sex offenders will never be caught a lot of civilians see it as being

a military problem but it really is because 5 percent of reported offenders are convicted. so almost none of them wind up on the sex offender registry there is no military sex offender list that i'm aware of but if you're convicted in court a felony conviction us. sex offense of a sex offense they're going to go on the national list for any sex and bad words were correct that is not the case it depends on what level conviction they got if they received over a year then that's considered a felony but a lot of these cases are pled down so that they're not felonies the military doesn't like to prosecute people and keep them. as felony convictions i often ask myself the question why wouldn't why would they stop and if there's nothing to stop them like incarceration or some other light major life change they're going to continue. if you run that the sexual predator through the judicial

system and then you get a slap on the hand all you've done is you've done the equivalent of the catch release program you've caught and you've educated now you released him back in the home town america he now knows a lot more about the law enforcement judicial system than he did when he 1st started which makes him a much more capable criminal a much more dangerous criminal they go on to literally prey on women and men in our neighborhoods across the united states i mean if we don't care about women or men in the military then we should care about women and men in our girls and boys in our neighborhoods back home. were.

the thing that bred my love than anything about this story was the young women. we went in with such ideas and i want to serve my country i want to give back to see a young person's hope and idealism crushed in that brutal way i think we owe our young people love and that. increasingly women are becoming some of the best trained professionals that we have in the military is a great soldiers and we can't afford to lose that. can happen after. people deeply believe in their hearts to serve their country they should be given that chance with respect. you know it's part of really harm american way

even though we just are purple hearts because we were wounded in time or in the give us one you know very just saying maybe there should be written for women you. are served and she who have survived it is a good. we have a good army a good military but not a great one and this is the kind of issue that keeps our military from being great. we can view this as a shared challenges not just a women's issue it's not just something that the military has to deal with but as a society we're all in this together. it's our national duty.

am. is are down for it due to noise down on stupid number 2 nobody when you milking the interview didn't go for you in a moment on and on console. him all the good that you need done up and have all these in a body only that has a doctor also has an out of the toxic aiyana you allow him off. of and i will probably all he was and that is what i have to find out of 5 years or

. more sitting demotivating of altering our senior son some of it it got the t. off also was he just got a shock. because of a problem in his are still the usual usual results. the issue if. you. are the supreme to.

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